No Objection Certificate
The NOC costs two thousand rupees and takes about a week.
It is mandatory for every Nepali student going abroad to study, whatever the level, including a language course. Since 2024 it is entirely online. It is worth knowing exactly what it involves, because it is one of the easiest parts of the process to be overcharged for.
Fee
NPR 2,000
Time
3 to 7 working days
Where
noc.moest.gov.np
The process
Six steps, in this order
- 01
Get the offer first
The NOC cannot be applied for until you hold an offer letter from the institution. This is the step people get wrong: they treat the NOC as something to start early, and it is the opposite. It sits between the offer and the visa.
- 02
Create an account at noc.moest.gov.np
The whole process has been online since 2024. There is no queue at Keshar Mahal any more for a standard application, and nobody needs to be paid to stand in one on your behalf.
- 03
Upload the documents
Academic certificates and transcripts, citizenship, passport, the offer letter, evidence of the fee paid or the financial arrangement, and the equivalence certificate where your qualification needs one.
- 04
Pay NPR 2,000
Through ConnectIPS, eSewa or Khalti, inside the portal. There is no cash counter and no agent fee. If somebody asks you for more than two thousand rupees to obtain a NOC, that is not what they are charging you for.
- 05
Wait three to seven working days
That is the normal range when the documents are right. Applications are held up by mismatched names between citizenship and academic certificates far more often than by anything else, so check that before you upload.
- 06
Download the signed PDF
The 2026 certificate is a digitally signed PDF carrying a QR code. Embassies, banks and universities scan it to verify it instantly, which also means a forged one is now trivially detectable.
Where it fits
Why the timing matters
The NOC sits between the offer and the visa lodgement, and it takes up to a week of working days. That week is already subtracted from every countdown on our deadline board, which is why our offer-by dates are earlier than the ones universities publish.
What holds it up
The three usual causes
- Name mismatches. The spelling on your citizenship, your passport and your transcripts has to agree. Fixing this afterwards takes far longer than checking it now.
- A missing equivalence certificate. Required where your qualification was not awarded in Nepal, and it has its own queue.
- Unreadable uploads. A phone photograph of a certificate at an angle is the most common rejection there is.
What we charge for this
Nothing separate.
Helping you through the NOC is inside the application handling fee on our fee page. The NPR 2,000 goes to the ministry through the portal, in your own name, and you keep the receipt.